Vladimir Putin hates having his portrait taken. But when Time magazine made him its Man of the Year for 2007 he said he would grant an interview. So then there was this big question: would he pose for a photograph?

I admit that, at first glance, the extract I’ve chosen for The Birthday Book might not seem particularly celebratory, given that it has for its subject my hero walking to what he believes will be certain death. But when Harry takes his last, long walk into the heart of the Dark Forest, he is choosing to accept a burden that fell on him when still a tiny child, in spite of the fact that he never sought the role for which he has been cast, never wanted the scar with which he has been marked. As his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, has tried to make clear to Harry, he could have refused to follow the path marked out for him. In spite of the weight of opinion and expectation that singles him out as the “Chosen One”, it is Harry’s own will that takes him into the Forest to meet Voldemort, prepared to suffer the fate that he escaped sixteen years before.

Networking is easy if you’re beautiful, rich or the prime minister. Fulfil any of those criteria and you can leave the active bit to other people while you sit back and net whoever takes your fancy. If, on the other hand, you’re none of these things, you’ll need to work at it.

The iconic image of the US presidential election is a screenprint measuring 85x55cm on woven paper showing Barack Obama above the word “HOPE”. Created by street artist Shepard Fairey, it has cropped up across America and, though not officially commissioned by the Obama campaign, on November 5 it hung around Chicago accompanied by the message “Congratulations Chicago’s Own Barack Obama, President-Elect of the United States of America.”

“Go enjoy yourself,” said President Bush in his congratulatory telephone call to Barack Obama on election night. It was like a child who has just smashed up all his toys inviting another to come and play in his nursery. To inherit two wars and a broken economy would not be most people’s idea of fun. But that’s pig-headed Bush for you.

There are times when the usually glacial pace of social progress accelerates to such a degree that you feel you are experiencing it in real time. Stand in the present and history comes rushing towards you, making you feel lightheaded.

The second that Ohio fell to Barack Obama on Tuesday evening, effectively handing him the keys to the White House, was one of those dizzying moments. A man born three years before African-Americans had secured their right to vote had risen by popular acclaim to the highest office in the land before he reached 50.

A political journey that should take generations felt as though it had occurred in a moment.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

While others tried to build a better computer or teapot or mousetrap, Julian FV Vincent, Mehmet Necip Sahinkaya and W O’Shea of the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Bath tried to build a better hammer. Unlike most previous hammer smiths, they studied woodpeckers. Why? Because to mechanical engineers, when they are in a certain frame of mind, a woodpecker is nature’s finest version of a hammer.

November 5, 2008, was the best of times and the worst of times for Senator John McCain. Eking out a surprise electoral-college victory in the presidential election he was favoured to lose, McCain was taking a victory lap around his Sedona, Arizona, compound when, complaining of chest pains, he texted his wife Cindy. What turned out to be his final message was: “Sell Budweiser stock.”